What is the Second Coming?

Our special theme says, “The Second Coming ends the lessons that the Holy Spirit teaches, making way for the Last Judgment, in which learning ends in one last summary that will extend beyond itself, and reaches up to God.”

Our last special theme, “What is the Real World?” shared the same teaching. Spiritual intuition leads us across a bridge that leads from the false self to truth. When we have reached the end of the bridge, spiritual intuition’s job is complete. God takes the final step to pull us into Itself. In today’s excerpt from our special theme, that step is called “The Last Judgment.” (We will look more at the “Last Judgment” later, because that is our next special theme.)

We’ve talked about the third stage of spiritual awakening as merging. This is the phase of disregarding the apparent personal will by following spiritual intuition until no separate will can be said to exist anymore. When merging is complete, there is realization of only one consciousness and one will. This is a highly awakened state where one is not tempted by the ego anymore. One lives a fully harmonious life that is centered in the still-point of God. This is the Second Coming. In NTI, it is called the fourth stage of awakening. However, it is not the last step in awakening. One step remains, which is God’s final step.

Here is how the final step is described in NTI 1 Corinthians:

The one that seems to be in the fourth stage is but a symbol of the truth that is. So this one must pass away also. But in its passing, you pass from a final illusion of beauty to Beauty that cannot be contained in illusion. You pass from form, which reflects Light, to Light, which shines into form.

Using the Four Principles of God as a symbol, this is awakening from the Second Principle, consciousness, to the First Principle, Source, which is ultimate truth.

Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.

Today’s lesson is focused on the third stage of the spiritual path, merging. However, this lesson is also useful to you if you are in the purification stage.

If merging is your primary focus now, use today’s lesson to increase your desire for surrender and your sincerity in that practice. Read today’s lesson in its entirety and with heart at least five times today. Let it give you a boost in enthusiasm. Also, practice surrender throughout the day.

If purification is your primary focus now, spend today noticing the thinking in the mind. Notice that your thinking does not have one goal. In one moment it prefers one solution to a specific problem, and in the next moment it criticizes that solution and prefers another. As The Teachings of Inner Ramana says:

The mind is not constant. The concerns of the mind for one day may be completely different than the concerns for another. If all of the concerns for one day are written down, it may be seen that concerns and imagined solutions conflict with one another, so that no true peace can be found with the mind. The solution of concerns creates new concerns. And so again, there is no peace with the mind.

This is why one must step away from the mind to find peace. Peace cannot be found with the mind.

Stepping away from the mind is as simple as losing interest in it. When the mind chatters, it chatters because you are listening. As you lose interest in what it has to say, because you know its answers are not your answers, the chattering of mind shall fade away.

Each time you notice the chaos of mind today, remove attention from thinking and place it with your willingness to lose interest in the mind, and then repeat today’s lesson, “Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.”

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What is the Second Coming?

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness lights the Second Coming’s way, …”

When we are learning to undo the ego thought system, one thing we learn is to let go of ego thoughts without speaking them or acting on them. This is important, because speaking them or acting on them fortifies them with our belief in their validity. That is the opposite of forgiveness.

Conversely, speaking from and acting on our choice to awaken strengthens that choice. It also sends a message regarding our sincerity to the creative principle, which results in a stronger response from Grace, one that is equal to our sincerity. This is why Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “strive for the coveted Grace with sincerity and honesty.”

Sincerity is more than a mental decision or emotional feeling. It is living from one’s convictions free of pretense, deceit or hypocrisy.

You cannot fool the creative principle. It responds to you as you are actually being in mind, heart, word and deed.

Are you ready to “strive for the coveted Grace with sincerity and honesty”?

The gift of Christ is all I seek today.

As you read and contemplate today’s lesson, also contemplate your sincerity as it is defined above. Do this without judgment. We aren’t interested in finding ourselves guilty, lacking or bad. We are simply interested in determining if there have been limits to the Grace in our life, because there have been limits in our motivation to live from our decision to awaken.

If we are limited, Grace responds in a way that is equal to our sincerity.
Likewise, if we remove all limits, Grace responds in a way that is equal to our sincerity.

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What is the Second Coming?

Yesterday we looked at the creation principle and saw how Grace is created based on our change of focus. Interestingly, Michael Langford writes this in his book, Manonasa:

[You may] wonder, “Is it by grace, luck, fate or magic that those very few who attain Manonasa (the final end of the false self after which it can never reappear) succeed in attaining Manonasa?” It is not by grace, luck, fate or magic. It is by using a different approach than the crowd uses. …

The intensity of the desire for freedom from the false self is the key factor. When that desire for freedom becomes extremely intense it changes everything. The extremely intense desire for freedom changes all of one’s actions, it increases the level of self honesty, it changes one’s approach to everything and especially it changes one’s approach to how to go about attaining Manonasa.

In his book, The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, Michael writes:

When your desire for Freedom becomes extremely intense, for the first time you can see what is essential for freedom and what is not essential. … When the desire for Freedom becomes even stronger, the desire for Freedom itself will bring you everything you need to succeed in your quest for Freedom including the answers to all your questions, the Direct Path teachings, the solution to all obstacles, the motivation to practice, etc. … The extremely intense desire for the direct experience of the absolute Truth will guide you to your inner Teacher.

So, when Michael writes in Manonasa that Manonasa (awakening) does not happen by grace, he is using the word “grace” as synonymous with “luck, fate or magic,” meaning that it does not come to you without your participation. This is true, because of the creative principle. If you feed interest in the world into the creative principle, you receive thoughts and circumstances that reflect that. But when you feed desire for truth into the creative principle, especially when that is backed by action, you receive everything you need to help you awaken. Gina Lake and I call that Grace; Michael does not. He gives credit to your desire for Freedom. However, we are all teaching about the creative principle and how it responds to you.

You do you part,
and Grace will do its part.
It is a divine partnership.
It is the law of the creative principle.

There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.

The prayer from today’s lesson says:

Father, the peace of Christ is given us, because it is Your Will that we be saved. Help us today but to accept Your gift, and judge it not. For it has come to us to save us from our judgment on ourselves.

Contemplate this prayer along with the teaching on divine partnership. What clarity comes to you through this contemplation?

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What is the Second Coming?

Yesterday I wrote of Christ’s Second Coming as the fully integrated state of knowing one’s self as consciousness. I also encouraged you to take part in awakening to consciousness by fulfilling your role within your current stage of awakening. Today, I will write about Grace and the part it fulfills in your awakening.

Recently, I read to you from Chapter 4 in Gina Lake’s book, In the World but Not of It. Here is one paragraph that I read:

Exercising your power to choose silence or any other activity that promotes Presence is a real turning point on the path to spiritual liberation. This marks an acceleration in your spiritual growth which will reverberate in your life in countless ways. Things will change, many of them unexpected. Anything truly begins to be possible. More conscious choosing of Presence lays the groundwork for Grace to be more active in your life. The more sincere you are, the more Grace is bestowed.

This is true because of the Third Principle of God, the ongoing creation principle.

The creation principle is a principle of now. It is as if all of the data in the universe is fed into a creation mechanism, which then creates the current moment of time based on the information received. You learned about this principle through “The Code” and NTI Ephesians.

When you are focused on the world and your thoughts about the world, this is the data that is fed into the creation principle, and so the creation principle responds by giving you world-based thoughts to think. Your life is also filled with circumstances that reflect your desire for the world and its drama.

However, as you begin to want truth, and you back that desire up by acting upon it, you send new data into the creation principle. The creation principle responds by giving you new thoughts to think and by filling your life with circumstances that support your desire to awaken.

In that way, Grace isn’t anything miraculous. It is divine law acting in the way divine law always acts by responding to you. It is as Nisargadatta Maharaj said:

I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle. To my mind there is no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens. It is quite obvious and within the experience of everybody. You just do not look carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see.

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness lights the Second Coming’s way, …” Please contemplate this line from our special theme along with the teaching I just shared about the Third Principle of God. What clarity comes to you?

Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.

Today’s lesson begins, “I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon, unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”

With the teaching about the creative principle in mind, what does this mean? Please write the answer to this question as if you are teaching about the creative principle and its effects to another person.

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